Generally, fishing reels, which support the spool to the reel body and drives the spool by rotating the handle for winding up a fishing line on the spool, are well-known as double bearing reel or single bearing reels.
Such reels are constructed such that a handle shaft parallel to a spool shaft is supported rotatably to the reel body, the handle is fixed to the end of the handle shaft projecting outwardly from the reel body, and friction plates at a drag mechanism together with a main gear are supported to the handle shaft entering into the reel body. The friction plates are urged toward the main gear by use of a drag knob screwable with the projecting end of the handle shaft to thereby transmit a driving force from the handle to the main gear through the handle shaft and drag mechanism and then to the spool shaft and spool through the main gear and a pinion, thereby driving the spool.
In other words, the drag mechanism in the conventional reel is interposed between the handle and the main gear, with the handle being provided axially apart from the spool with respect to the axial center thereof.
The fishing reel, especially the double bearing reel, is provided at the position corresponding to the axial center of the spool with a reel mounting leg for mounting the reel to a fishing rod.
The handle, as noted above, is positioned axially outwardly apart from the axial center of the spool because the drag mechanism is interposed between the main gear and the handle so as to enlarge the distance between the handle and the rod to an extent of the axial length of the drag mechanism. Hence, when the handle is rotated to wind up the fishing line onto the spool, the moment of rotation around the rod acts on the reel and rod due to the driving force of the handle, thereby creating a problem in that the handle operation may be difficult.
Also, the friction plates at the drag mechanism are housed in the reel body, whereby the drag mechanism is restricted in size. As a result, a problem also is created in that the dragging force cannot be increased more than a predetermined value, but also fine adjustment thereof is structurally impossible.